The Importance Of Professional Role In Law

Through my placement, I have developed a greater appreciation of how difficult it is for a barrister to balance the competing interests and duties owed to the accused, the complainant, the public, and the court, and remain alive to the ethical issues but remain distant from the matters before them. To practice law successfully, a lawyer must have both good communication skills, as well as a technical understanding of the law.

My experience on placement will contribute to my future professional role is the importance of maintaining an emotional distance from the matter before you. In agreement with Wilkins, Ross substantiates that ‘collapsing professional ethics and into personal morality misses something important’, and I agree with this

It was a drug trafficking case, and C has prior convictions for similar offences. Briefly, the drug investigation branch found C at home with almost $10,000 in cash hidden in his underwear, and flushed remnants of methamphetamine in his toilet. Nick and I were convinced that C needed to plead. However, when it got to trial, Davison J gave the prosecutor a particularly difficult time because, as it became evident, the prosecutor had effectively no evidence: no samples had been taken from the sink that C had allegedly used to flush drugs down. The extent of the evidence was that a trained police dog ran to the bathroom and knelt down to indicate the presence of drugs. This came an enormous shock to the courtroom. Nick and I were mistaken about the extent of the evidence against C. By a stroke of luck, Nick’s client escaped unscathed. A nolle prosequi resulted. C was annoyed and said, “You wanted me to plead guilty!” This was a valuable lesson for me because I realized that sometimes matters that appear obvious might go unnoticed, even passing through a number of hands at the DPP. It is for you, then, as a lawyer, to ensure that the state, at all stages, is held to a high

I believe that both validation and communication, then, are crucial for justice access. It is already intimidating for a client to meet a lawyer and discuss details of their life with them, especially difficult to disclose information that may reflect negatively on the client. It is necessary to foster a mutual respect between a lawyer and their client. I found that it was equally important for a client to feel that they were receiving adequate representation just as much as they actually were receiving it. Law is a public good if it accessible by all. It is important to be make a client feel comfortable during interviews to provide proper justice access, and be professional in your dealings with them. Lauchland discusses a number of exercises for good communication, and one of the best tools that he discussed to ‘disarm’ a client is to establish a rapport. I learnt how to ‘thread’ in conversations by asking client’s about whether they had a long drive down, or the weather, or anything else they mentioned. This is a useful conversational tool necessary to make people feel comfortable in situations, and it distracts them, in part, from their situation. This was especially important for me to monitor my tone because a majority of Nick’s clients were accused of several sexual offences, usually against children. People can be very perceptive when they feel that they are being judged, and as defence counsel and accompanying Nick as I